You can get just Xara. If you download the trial that is all you will get unless you want all three and then you have to download all three, at least the last ime I looked that is the way it was.

Thanks, the key to getting the moon right is the shutter speed and using a long lens. You have to shoot in manual because the camera's meter will read the black and over expose the shot so ignore what the meter tells you.

The clouds were dense across the whole picture as you can see in the wide angle shot but notice that they quickly fade to black in the third shot; that’s because the camera only picked up what was within the dynamic range of the camera and either blew out the highlights or the shadows went to black. That is why without some artistic efforts with focus stacking and/or bracketed shots in post production (bracketing can be hard to do because clouds are constantly moving) the moon always blows out to a white circle.

Because cameras render a picture in two dimensions having the moon nothing more than a white circle in a halo is not always undesirable such is evident in the case of the first shot where the moon, because it shows some detail, looks like the clouds surround it (it would have looked more normal with no detail on the moon itself). The eye/brain connection expects the moon, because it is so far away, to be blown out of focus to a soft white haze with no detail, it suggests the great distance between the moon and the clouds.

On the first shot, the one that looks like the clouds are surrounding the moon, I used a Mead Star scope with the camera attached to the back. Once I got the shutter speed and aperture correct (it took some trial and error, Okay, lots of it) I shot to capture the clouds and then refocused to capture the moon and then stacked the moon onto the clouds in post production. It is an interesting shot but puts the clouds near to the moon and not the earth where they should be.

The third shot looks somewhat normal even with the moon somewhat in focus becase of how quickly the clouds faded to black which kept the clouds nearer to the earth; that is why I did not crop all the black out but kept a large amount around the edges.


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Here is another shot I took a few nights later of a harvest moon, there was some post production work done on the moon but "very little" in order to maintain a reasonable amount of suggested distance; in the actual scene the ring was much larger in relation to the moon and the moon was crystal clear. I also used a shorter lense (55mm wide angle) because the moon was not the primary subject matter, the ring and clouds were.

Awww, you're making me blush :)

Xara is beefy but the learning curve is quite level, its power to usability ratio is probably the best one out there; also Xara has a whole library of easy to understand tutorials. Xara understands that the majority of users out there are not hard core professionals and they need power to easily do what they want to do the most and even a lot more without having to learn a program that you could take college courses on.

Truth be told, the engineers that developed Xara are the core engineers that originally developed Corel Draw; for some reason they left Corel and went to Australia and developed Xara designing the Xara engine after the Corel design but making it much better. I may be wrong about some details but one thing is for certain, the developers of Xara were not some new "flying by the seat of their pants" software wannabees, they started Xara with a firm foundation of know-how in both the business and technical end of the Xara project.

You're absolutely correct, I would never call this a done picture; I was just slapping something together that was on hand and convenient to illustrate how easy it can be done. Although Xara ( http://www.xara.com ) is my primary editing software, the bird was masked by a dedicated masking program (and Xara plug-in) called Vertus Fluid Mask, probably my most used plug-in.

Yes, I have heard the name but as to a relationship the name is not that common but I really cannot say one way or the other.

If you simply want a more varied or vivid sky then consider these.

The direction of the lighting on this one is not quite right but you get the idea.

If you don't have photoshop do not waste your time or your money getting it. Photoshop has the greatest market share and resources to promote itself so people are overwhelmed into thinking you have to use it because nearly everybody else does and that is simply not true; they simply have the resources to perpetuate themselves so the majority of new users look to it not knowing there are better choices to be made. I have been doing professional graphics art work for many years and I have never used it. Photoshop's learning curve is extreamly steep and there are simply too many usless whistles and bells for any but the most hard core professional user who is already embedded in its use.

I use a program called XARA Pro 7 with a few specialty plugins (I have yet to find a photoshop plugin that will not work with XARA) and I have been using it for ten years now; before that I used any of a number of inexpensive and easy to learn and use programs, XARA costs less than 1/4 of what photoshop does.

In the picture I posted I was able to peel the bird off of it's background in about two minutes using a program called Fluid Mask and then position it over the mine, adjust all it's parameters end export it as you see it.

Because Xara is a vector based program it does many things easier, faster and in real time (meaning you can see changes as they are happening versus selecting a change and then rendering it before it appears) whereas Photoshop is pixel based. I do have a copy of Photoshop elements because there is one tool where a pixel based program has it over a vector based program and that tool is the clone too. Xara has a clone tool that I use most of the time but it works differently so once in a great while I opt to import my work into elements, use the clone tool and then export my work back to Xara.

Actually I used a program called Fluid Mask to mask out the unwanted background and then I Googled "grass" and found the background you see here and then layered the two together after adjusting the white balance of the child. There was no cloning involved, the only real close work was blending the hair off of the original background so nothing was lost.

The only thing I can guess is that it has something to do with who the subjects are, perhaps the child is both the born and unborn and/or the women are one in the same but I doubt that; other than that I see nothing unusual about it.

Nice composit but you have made a classic mistake. The shadows of the trees and the shadows on the girls indicate two very different light sources and intensities coming from two different directions, also the white balance is off between the two photoes used. I suspect the picture of the girls and baby was taken indoors.

I gave it a shot, what do you think?

Great captures and I agree with a previous post, the existing backgrounds work pretty well but, since you asked, try this on for size.

These are great captures but they do need a better background or at least a more vibrant sky. The good thing is that due to the solid and plain background it becomes an easy cut and past. It took me less than 5 minutes to do this picture; I chose the Kennecott copper mine because it lends well to the color and lighting conditions, and it was fun.

Nonesence, you have an obvious talent and valued opinion, nobody said I am the last word in photography, far from it. I'm sure lizardworks will take it all in, digest bits and pieces from everyone and build her talent thereby, after all that is why we are here. I think you were seeing the picture that is contained within the picture and, considering that, your views are quite valid.